...We've been working on some very cool projects this year, so stay tuned to learn why we've been MIA on the ND blog!
Pollinator Week is here! The third week in June (this year the 20th-26th) is the week we celebrate our critical, and awesome pollinators. We're talking about bees (honey bees are amazing pollinators, btw), butterflies, moths, wasps, ants, flies, hummingbirds and of course, bats! Remember without bats, there's no tequila, so...
Celebrating these little marvels of nature is important, since they are responsible for so many amazing ecosystem services, including pollinating about 2/3 of our food crops. We're losing insects (specifically) at alarming rates - at about 1 to 2% per year where insect abundance has been studied according to Scott Black of Xerces Society. You can help bring them back by planting native plants and providing a safe pesticide-free garden for them to safely pollinate while staying strong and healthy. If you don't have a native plant source, ask your local nursery to please carry pesticide-free native plants, and request they set aside a section just for natives to make it easier to find them. If enough of us request them, they will eventually have to do it, right? If you're still not having luck locating native plants for your area, check out the National Wildlife Federation's native plant finder site.
Now, go grab your iPhone (like it's not in your back pocket) or camera and take pics of pollinators this week. If you send them to info@naturedigger.com, we may use them in a post this week or even after pollinator week is over, since we all want to continue to show our pollinators how much we appreciate them. Happy Pollinator Week!
Below are some of our favorite little workhorses. :-)
Honeybee (photo by Naturedigger)
Anna's hummingbird (photo by Naturedigger)
Hoverfly (photo by Naturedigger)
Eastern tiger swallowtail (photo by Naturedigger)
Hummingbird clearwing (photo by Naturedigger)
Tarantula hawk wasp (photo by Naturedigger)